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1/4Credit: Professor Halim Rane on Facebook 22 December 2025I’ve noticed many Australians have very low levels of literacy regarding the history of Palestine and its inhabitants. There is a widespread misconception that the land historically belonged to the Jewish people and that Palestinians have only inhabited the land since the Muslims defeated the Byzantine in the 7th century.Here are the facts:

1. Palestine has never “always” belonged to one people. For over 3,000 years the land has been ruled by multiple empires and polities—Canaanite city-states, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Muslim, and British. Jewish political rule existed only briefly and intermittently, like that of many other groups, and never continuously. In fact, Muslims have ruled Palestine longer than any other empire or political entity—1280 years (638-1917 CE, excluding Crusader rule: Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Ayyubid, Mamluk, and Ottoman)@palestine@lemmy.ml@palestine@fedibird.com